CURRICULUM VITAE

Jennifer Trant

158 Lee Avenue Toronto, Ontario ME 2P3 Canada

Phone: +1 416 691 2516 Fax: +1 416 352 6025 URL: www.archimuse.com

CAREER

Archives & Museum Informatics, Toronto, Ontario
Partner and Principal Consultant (1997 on)

Consultant in the strategic management of cultural heritage information. Areas of expertise include strategic information management, use of network technologies for access to cultural heritage information (in text, image and multimedia), international standards development, project design and management, meeting facilitation and reporting. See Client List.

Executive Director, Art Museum Image Consortium
From 1998-2004

Directed a membership-based, not-for-profit consortium, licensing museum multimedia documentation for educational use in universities, K-12 education and public libraries, from start-up. Full organizational details available at http://www.amico.org.

Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Library and Information Science, University of Toronto
2002, 2003

Co-taught a graduate level seminar course: Special Topics in Information Studies Digital Heritage: Creation, Publication, Metadata Management, and Service Delivery in the Digital Library. Syllabus online at http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/courses/LIS/2199/

Editor in Chief, Archives and Museums Informatics: the cultural heritage informatics quarterly (1997-2000) Managing Editor (1996-1997)

Edited a peer-reviewed journal from Kluwer Academic Publishers, The Netherlands

Arts and Humanities Data Service, King's College, London
Collections and Standards Development (1996)

Responsible for the development a common standards framework for the five distributed digital archives of this National Service, funded by the Joint Information Systems Commission, including the definition of shared metadata for discovery and retrieval, the coordination of collections development policy, and the exploration of digital preservation alternatives. Advised UK national committees on the development of networked digital content for higher education.

Director, Arts Information Management, Toronto, Canada (1990-1996)

Consultant to art galleries, museums, and educational institutions regarding the management of information about works of art. Services included strategic planning, project design and implementation, database design and implementation, and data and system documentation. Clients included the College Art Association, J. Paul Getty Trust, Luna Imaging, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

Canadian Centre for Architecture
Coordinator, Catalogue Development Program (1989-1993)

Managed the planning, development, documentation and implementation of the integrated computerized catalogue for the Prints & Drawings, Photographs, and Archives Collections, and its reconciliation with the MARC-based practices of the Library, and international museum standards; developed shared cataloguing and authority control standards; supervised the in-house publication of the CCA Collections Documentation Guide; developed policy regarding access to information and cataloguing practice; planned a retrospective cataloguing strategy and programs; trained curatorial staff in cataloguing standards and methodologies.

Canadian Centre for Architecture
Curatorial Assistant, Prints & Drawings Collection (1988-1989)

Represented the CCA at the Foundation for Documents of Architecture, Washington D.C., a project sponsored by the Getty Art History Information Program to develop standards for cataloguing architectural drawings, and its automation. Began work on cataloguing standards for the Prints & Drawings Collection. Staff project to eliminate accessioning backlog.

National Gallery of Canada, Prints, Drawings & Photographs
Curatorial Assistant (1986-1988)

Coordinated Master Drawings from the National Gallery of Canada, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Fall 1988 and tour). Assisted with installation of works from the permanent collection. Researched and catalogued works of art considered for acquisition, and prepared written justifications. Catalogued major portions of the collection for the Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN) database.

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

Conference Chair / Program Committee

• Co-Chair, Museums and the Web, 1997-2004
• Co-Chair: International Cultural Heritage Informatics Meeting, ichim 1997-2001, Program Committee: 2003
• Program Committee: Joint Conference on Digital Libraries – JCDL (ACM / IEEE), 2002
• Culture Program Committee: Tenth International World Wide Web Conference, 2001
• Program Committee: Digital Libraries - DL (ACM - ACM SIGIR and SIGWEB) 1999, 2000
• Program Committee: Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL), 2002, (ACM/IEEE)
• Program Committee: Association for Computing in the Humanities (ACH)

Boards

• Media and Technology Committee, American Association of Museums (AAM) 1997-98, 2000
• International Visual Arts Information Network (IVAIN)
• Documentation Committee, International Council of Museums (ICOM/CIDOC)
• Museum Educational Site Licensing Project (MESL) Management Committee (1995-1998)

Boards Past Chair:

• Multimedia Working Group, Documentation Committee, International Council of Museums (ICOM/CIDOC) 1994-1997
• Fine Arts Working Group, Canadian Heritage Information Network (1991-1993)

Community Standards Development Projects

• NISO Image Metadata Project (2002)
• Visual Images Working Group, Conference on Fair Use (CONFU), US Department of Commerce (1996-1998)
• Consortium for the Computer Interchange of Museum Information (CIMI)
• National Initiative for Networked Cultural Heritage (NINCH) including Best Practices Working Group
• Art Information Task Force (AITF)
• Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI)
• International Committee of Museums (ICOM) / Documentation Committee (CIDOC) Data Model Working Group

Proposal Review

Regularly review manuscripts for scholarly journals and funding proposals for agencies North America and Europe.

Society Memberships

• American Association of Museums (AAM)
• Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA)
• Canadian Association of Museums (CMA)
• College Art Association (CAA)
• Computers and the History of Art (CHArt)
• International Committee of Museums (ICOM) / Documentation Working Group (CIDOC)
• Museum Computer Network (MCN)
• Visual Resources Association (VRA)

EDUCATION

University of Toronto, Faculty of Information Studies

PhD in progress
Thesis: Exploring the role of social tagging and folksonomy as means to encourage engagement with art museums
Faculty Council Member, 2004, 2005
Executive Committee Member, 2005

Queen's University, Kingston
M.A. in Art History, 1987
Thesis: The Victorian Furniture Industry in Grey and Bruce Counties, Ontario

Queen's University Graduate Scholarship, 1986
Teaching Assistant, 1985-1986
Faculty Council Member, 1985-1986

University of Toronto, Trinity College
B.A. (Hons.) with distinction, 1984
Double Major in Canadian History and Religious Studies, Minor in Anthropology

 

PUBLICATIONS LIST